Posted by Lieutenant Obiah Torrirs (Chief Medical Officer) in Sickbay - Alex Winters reporting for duty

Posted by Cadet Alex Winters (Doctor) in Sickbay - Alex Winters reporting for duty

Posted by Lieutenant Obiah Torrirs (Chief Medical Officer) in Sickbay - Alex Winters reporting for duty

<snip>
OOC: You don’t have to snip after every post, just after it gets difficult to read! :3
IC:

“Ah, Miss Winters, is it?” When they spoke, as they identified with both sets of pronouns, their voice was accented with the faint twinge of a clearly alien non-binary woman. “I apologize for the clutter,” They motioned to the PADDs littering their desk, “I was not expecting you until later.”

Alex nodded. “I came aboard just ten minutes ago,” she said. “I suppose I could have taken a little bit more time to get situated in my quarters, but I’m just not the idle type,” she said. “I’d rather start getting into the watch rotation as soon as I can, if you don’t , mind.”

“I understand, completely.” The Doctor responded, taking a second to glance over at their PaDD, checking on the previous work. “Okay, just make certain to take time for yourself. As much as you may want to get to work, I need alert and attentive doctors on my staff, cadet or not.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Alex said with a smile. “Understood.”

“Please, have a seat.” They rose to their feet, making their way to the replicator. “Can I get you anything?”

Dr. Torrirs
CMO

Alex took the offered seat, then smiled a little smile. “Coffee would be good,” she said. “Black, no sweetener.”

“Understood.” They returned, a light nod of their head affirming her words. Making their way fully to the replicator, they plucked in the request, listening to the distinctive whir, indicating its procedure.

Niol had had no coffee. Or synthehol. Or sweetened drinks. Or sweetened … well, anything, except for unprocessed fruits. In fact, Niol didn’t have much that could tempt people to think of life as anything other than a beautiful but demanding proving ground, where God would judge whether one was worthy of getting into Paradise. Plus, they could only eat whatever they managed to produce on their own. Which wasn’t much, by the standards of replicator-equipped Earthlings. The result of this was that Alex’ preferred diet had been … well, rather bland and monotonous, compared to that of her classmates, when she’d first gotten to the Academy. She still had few vices. No candy of any kind. Nothing intoxicating. No artificial sweeteners. Certainly no elaborate three-course meals for her. But coffee … well, coffee had been a revelation to her, when she’d first discovered it. Coffee had become something she wasn’t really willing to go without, anymore.

• Cadet Alex Winters, Doctor

Having replicated the requested coffee for the young cadet, and a mug of pomegranate tea for herself, they curled their fingers around the handles, returning themselves to a position in front of the younger doctor. Setting down her mug, they rounded the desk, taking a seat in their chair, as their ankles crossed beneath the barrier of the hardened surface of the table. “Tell me about yourself, Doctor Winters.” They began, sipping at their tea. “Why medicine? What do you specialize in? Things of that matter.” They offered for something to go off of.

Dr. Torrirs
CMO

Alex took a sip of the newly offered mug of coffee, savoring it for a moment before she spoke. It was as much a way to enjoy her cup of coffee as it was a way to give herself some time to think. Why medicine? It seemed like a straightforward enough question to start the conversation with, but it wasn’t really. Not to Alex. She decided to skip to the easy part, first.

“My orders say I’m placed here as a resident in emergency medicine and traumatology,” she said. “Additionally, I’ve logged 200 hours of independent holographic skills lab training, focused mostly on cardio-thoracic surgery. According to my Starfleet personnel jacket, that should qualify me to assist an experienced colleague with the surgical treatment of heart and lung conditions in most humanoid patients.” She looked at her hands, now resting serenely in her lap, for a moment. “I don’t know that I’m … ready … exactly, to do any of it on my own,” she added quietly. “But I suppose I’ll find out soon enough, if and when the need arises. Maude willing, it won’t.”

She looked up at the CMO then, realizing she might not be making the best impression by announcing in advance that she’d rather not have to intervene. She’d seen plenty of fellow Cadets and other medical students, during her various rotations on Earth, who became positively giddy at the prospect of a gravely injured patient coming in for them to ‘practice’ on. Alex, for her part, had never understood this. She considered it her calling and her duty to use the skills she had been taught and the gifts she had been given in ways that would serve her patients’ best interests. But sometimes … sometimes, that meant either do nothing, or leave it in the hands of someone more capable and experienced. And it was certainly never in anyone’s best interest for a doctor to rejoice in their misfortune.

“My grandfather taught me to respect life in all its incarnations,” she said, “and how sometimes, that means there really isn’t anything to do but make people comfortable as the inevitable happens.” She sighed. “I’ll admit, since I grew up in a community that saw modern medicine as human beings playing God, and therefore unacceptable, there were a great many things we would leave in God’s hands that I know now, we could have treated or prevented fairly easily. But my grandfather … he tried. Within the confines of what little the villagers’ beliefs would allow, and with what he had available to him on my home planet, he tried his very best. The people who believed they’d never need his help, shunned him. They considered him a heretic. But there were others. There were people who owed him their lives, in one way or another. They made sure his needs and mine were met while he was still alive. We had … a rather isolated existence, but we didn’t lack any of the basics, and he considered it his calling.”

Alex paused as deep melancholy, comfortable in its familiarity, descended on her. “I suppose that’s a calling I share with him, Doctor. Although for a long time, I wasn’t so sure. I was fascinated with what little technology we had on Niol – an ancient radio, among other things. Strictly forbidden and useless where we lived, but one of my grandfather’s most prized possessions. And eventually, mine. I must have taken it apart and put it back together again at least five or six times during my childhood.” She smiled at the memory. “And the, when the first shuttle I’d ever seen crash-landed at the edge of our village, I was nine years old. I didn’t go to school. It was all religious doctrine all the time, so my grandfather wouldn’t let me. I spent a lot of time early that spring with the shuttle’s co-pilot, who was a Starfleet engineer. I handed him his tools as he repaired the craft’s transceiver in order to call for help. And I resolved that some day, I would be an engineer on a starship, like him.”

She blinked as she smiled a sad smile. “In the end, I suppose I did a little bit of both. I’m a healer, like my grandfather, on a starship, like that engineer who crossed my path by accident when I was nine. Some would say that’s destiny.”

• Cadet Alex Winters, Doctor